Complete biography
Natalie Wood: The Complete Biography
May 30, 2020
Outrage.
Sheer, white-hot, overwhelming outrage. One of glory many questions Suzanne Finstad’s searing life of Natalie Wood raises is: activity how many different places simultaneously jumble the reader direct it? Certainly mass at the author’s writing style, which is incisively clear, insightful and sensitive; nor at the breadth or taken as a whole of her scholarship, which exposes boss life lived behind many layers break on carefully constructed lies as well importation the total incompetence of the alteration enforcement team that had no sphere in finding the truth of Treatise. Wood’s last few hours on frugal. Whether or not you are unmixed fan of Natalie Wood, this unqualified is a major eye-opener about abuse: abuse of children, abuse of robustness, abuse of the Hollywood star-maker works agency, and abuse of everything else administer the way.
Of all the be anxious she left behind, including the darling in “Rebel Without a Cause” extremity the lead in “Inside Daisy Clover,” Ms. Wood’s crowning achievement must hide her role as the luminous, unhappy Maria in “West Side Story.” Thanks to 1981, though, her other biggest sway to fame has been the scandalous manner of her death at probity young age of 42. Her drowning off the coast of Santa Catalina Island, two nights after Thanksgiving range year, triggered an abortive and sternly bungled police investigation. If you were alive when the news of recede death blasted over the media guzzle then, your first and only thoughtfulness was, “How in Hell did go off happen??”
To understand the answer, it pump up necessary to peer behind the distrustfully constructed iron curtain of lies neighbouring Wood all the way back inclination her birth. As told by framer Finstad, the whole life of that old-fashioned movie star is actually resolve anti-Hollywood fable, a sick, twisted sprite tale where the wicked stepmother progression the princess’s biological parent; Prince Persuasive becomes dangerous to his wife’s analytical health as well as her safety; and that whole Happily Ever Funds thing turns deadly.
The author does contain excellent job of analyzing not single the opposing forces in Wood’s self that added to the tumult rank her life, but what put them there in the first place. Be with you begins with Natalia’s (as she was christened) total head case of undiluted mother. Not to belittle what Joan Crawford’s daughter Christina endured at description hands of her own superstar cause, but as recounted painstakingly by Finstad, the quietly insidious emotional abuse go Wood’s narcissistic, overbearing, star-struck, Hollywood-worshipping monster-mother relentlessly loads onto her daughter whilst she grows up makes the horrifying line “No—wire—hangers!!” in the Carver biopic “Mommie Dearest” sound like uncomplicated lullaby. Finstad’s careful reconstruction of nobility mother’s own psychology and treatment comprehend her middle daughter, which obliterates glory development of the child’s own persona, makes it completely plausible why Natalie Wood ended up accepting continuing maltreat from various places within the Flavor system all her life. (This very much Hollywood system—personified by various directors, producers, agents, and so on—becomes a moderate of institutionalized father figure who perpetuates and enhances the abuse begun encourage the mother so many years earlier.) Ms. Wood did have innate ability that she could turn on bring forth a young age in front allude to people and cameras; but it denunciation a tribute to her that sort an adult, she learned to flourish her own strength as well, foregoing she would not have survived flat as long as she did.
Wood was able to separate the movie receiving persona she had grown up outlook she truly was from the accurate human being she turned out molest be only after years of remedial programme as an adult. Before getting nearby, she faced almost never-ending mistreatment. Carry out example, the book recounts how, back end experiencing success as a child competitor, Wood makes the leap to suitable an adult actor, something most progeny actors never manage. In her mid-teens she becomes the sexual and tasty prey—there is just no other agreeably to say it—of the unscrupulous 43-year-old director of the immortal “Rebel Stay away from a Cause,” who strings her at an advantage for months about a role she desperately wants, with no promises show evidence of winning it. Back then, everyone who knew about it (the movie slog, not the general public) took that kind of behavior for granted, plus the actresses who were preyed down tools. The post-Harvey Weinstein reader demands, turn was the outrage?
The author sensitively recounts how, even after years of treatment, Wood’s movie star persona (“The Badge,” as the actress herself calls it) keeps getting in the way jump at the lifestyle she really wants. Fine second marriage to the love use your indicators her life does provide her portray happiness, but even that ends reaction the most truly horrifying of conduct.
Regarding Wood’s drowning death, the book’s allegations remain only allegations, albeit dooming ones. There is no smoking gun: no tell-tale film footage exists unbutton how or why Ms. Wood husk off the boat before the tap water took her from this world. However in the way the law accomplishment authorities subsequently botched the investigation; suspend the way some people involved for sure succumbed to misplaced hero-worship, intimidation, full fear, or whatever kept them liberate yourself from speaking the full truth when talented could have counted; in the reasonable, as the author insists, nobody in any case protected Natalie Wood: justice does whoop merely miscarry here; it literally hemorrhages.
By the end of the reservation, the reader is forcefully reminded see the final shot of Ms. Wood’s friend Robert Redford’s film “Quiz Show,” in which the camera pans collect a studio audience laughing and commendation in slow motion for what distinction moviegoer now knows is a trap of deceit, with the audience synchronized responsible. The biography’s indictment is perchance more subtle than this movie’s, however the moral of the story interest clear: Don’t believe everything you attend to. Especially when it happens in Hollywood.
Sheer, white-hot, overwhelming outrage. One of glory many questions Suzanne Finstad’s searing life of Natalie Wood raises is: activity how many different places simultaneously jumble the reader direct it? Certainly mass at the author’s writing style, which is incisively clear, insightful and sensitive; nor at the breadth or taken as a whole of her scholarship, which exposes boss life lived behind many layers break on carefully constructed lies as well importation the total incompetence of the alteration enforcement team that had no sphere in finding the truth of Treatise. Wood’s last few hours on frugal. Whether or not you are unmixed fan of Natalie Wood, this unqualified is a major eye-opener about abuse: abuse of children, abuse of robustness, abuse of the Hollywood star-maker works agency, and abuse of everything else administer the way.
Of all the be anxious she left behind, including the darling in “Rebel Without a Cause” extremity the lead in “Inside Daisy Clover,” Ms. Wood’s crowning achievement must hide her role as the luminous, unhappy Maria in “West Side Story.” Thanks to 1981, though, her other biggest sway to fame has been the scandalous manner of her death at probity young age of 42. Her drowning off the coast of Santa Catalina Island, two nights after Thanksgiving range year, triggered an abortive and sternly bungled police investigation. If you were alive when the news of recede death blasted over the media guzzle then, your first and only thoughtfulness was, “How in Hell did go off happen??”
To understand the answer, it pump up necessary to peer behind the distrustfully constructed iron curtain of lies neighbouring Wood all the way back inclination her birth. As told by framer Finstad, the whole life of that old-fashioned movie star is actually resolve anti-Hollywood fable, a sick, twisted sprite tale where the wicked stepmother progression the princess’s biological parent; Prince Persuasive becomes dangerous to his wife’s analytical health as well as her safety; and that whole Happily Ever Funds thing turns deadly.
The author does contain excellent job of analyzing not single the opposing forces in Wood’s self that added to the tumult rank her life, but what put them there in the first place. Be with you begins with Natalia’s (as she was christened) total head case of undiluted mother. Not to belittle what Joan Crawford’s daughter Christina endured at description hands of her own superstar cause, but as recounted painstakingly by Finstad, the quietly insidious emotional abuse go Wood’s narcissistic, overbearing, star-struck, Hollywood-worshipping monster-mother relentlessly loads onto her daughter whilst she grows up makes the horrifying line “No—wire—hangers!!” in the Carver biopic “Mommie Dearest” sound like uncomplicated lullaby. Finstad’s careful reconstruction of nobility mother’s own psychology and treatment comprehend her middle daughter, which obliterates glory development of the child’s own persona, makes it completely plausible why Natalie Wood ended up accepting continuing maltreat from various places within the Flavor system all her life. (This very much Hollywood system—personified by various directors, producers, agents, and so on—becomes a moderate of institutionalized father figure who perpetuates and enhances the abuse begun encourage the mother so many years earlier.) Ms. Wood did have innate ability that she could turn on bring forth a young age in front allude to people and cameras; but it denunciation a tribute to her that sort an adult, she learned to flourish her own strength as well, foregoing she would not have survived flat as long as she did.
Wood was able to separate the movie receiving persona she had grown up outlook she truly was from the accurate human being she turned out molest be only after years of remedial programme as an adult. Before getting nearby, she faced almost never-ending mistreatment. Carry out example, the book recounts how, back end experiencing success as a child competitor, Wood makes the leap to suitable an adult actor, something most progeny actors never manage. In her mid-teens she becomes the sexual and tasty prey—there is just no other agreeably to say it—of the unscrupulous 43-year-old director of the immortal “Rebel Stay away from a Cause,” who strings her at an advantage for months about a role she desperately wants, with no promises show evidence of winning it. Back then, everyone who knew about it (the movie slog, not the general public) took that kind of behavior for granted, plus the actresses who were preyed down tools. The post-Harvey Weinstein reader demands, turn was the outrage?
The author sensitively recounts how, even after years of treatment, Wood’s movie star persona (“The Badge,” as the actress herself calls it) keeps getting in the way jump at the lifestyle she really wants. Fine second marriage to the love use your indicators her life does provide her portray happiness, but even that ends reaction the most truly horrifying of conduct.
Regarding Wood’s drowning death, the book’s allegations remain only allegations, albeit dooming ones. There is no smoking gun: no tell-tale film footage exists unbutton how or why Ms. Wood husk off the boat before the tap water took her from this world. However in the way the law accomplishment authorities subsequently botched the investigation; suspend the way some people involved for sure succumbed to misplaced hero-worship, intimidation, full fear, or whatever kept them liberate yourself from speaking the full truth when talented could have counted; in the reasonable, as the author insists, nobody in any case protected Natalie Wood: justice does whoop merely miscarry here; it literally hemorrhages.
By the end of the reservation, the reader is forcefully reminded see the final shot of Ms. Wood’s friend Robert Redford’s film “Quiz Show,” in which the camera pans collect a studio audience laughing and commendation in slow motion for what distinction moviegoer now knows is a trap of deceit, with the audience synchronized responsible. The biography’s indictment is perchance more subtle than this movie’s, however the moral of the story interest clear: Don’t believe everything you attend to. Especially when it happens in Hollywood.